Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

This fun food brings out creativity

Recipe: Garden-variety focaccia decorated with whimsy

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED JUN 7, 2020

The finished product: Edible art.
(Photos: Debbie Arrington)

It's OK to play with your food, especially when making focaccia.

This simple Italian flatbread can be a blank canvas for garden-inspired edible "art." Use cut vegetables, tomatoes and herbs as your "paint."

Using sliced peppers, tomato, onions and more, create geometric designs or whimsical flowers. Clusters of sliced cherry tomatoes can become bouquets of appetizing blooms.

Slice toppings about 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick. Dip parsley or cilantro in lemon juice mixed with water, so those leaves will retain their green color during baking.

Then, have fun. Garden-variety focaccia is something the whole family can help create.
A bread machine speeds up the dough-making process. The actual baking takes less than 25 minutes.

Too hot to turn on the oven? This focaccia can be "baked" on the grill.

Garden-variety focaccia
Makes one large loaf

Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups water (room temperature)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons bread machine or quick-acting yeast
Additional olive oil as needed
Lemon juice, optional
Coarse sea salt
Parmesan cheese, optional
Decorations: Sliced peppers, tomatoes, olives, onions, scallions, mushrooms, parsley or other vegetables and herbs.

Use a variety of vegetables to "paint" a picture.

Instructions:

In the bowl of a bread machine, combine (in order) water, 2 tablespoons olive oil, flour, 1 tablespoon salt, sugar and yeast. Process dough in bread machine. (Dough also can be made in advance and refrigerated up to 24 hours.)

With olive oil, oil a large rimmed baking sheet. With oiled fingers, gently spread dough onto baking sheet. Don't worry if it doesn't stretch all the way; the dough will spread as it relaxes.

Set the dough and baking sheet aside in a warm place, out of drafts, and let rise until about double in size. (On a warm day, this takes about 20 minutes; on cold days, up to an hour.)

Meanwhile, prepare toppings. Slice peppers, tomatoes, onions, olives or other toppings 1/8- to 1/4-inch thick. Dip any green herbs such as parsley in lemon-infused water.

When ready, pat dough down evenly with your palms. Arrange decorations as desired, pressing the pieces down gently into the dough just a little.

Satisfied with the picture? Brush with olive oil, sprinkle

with salt, and pop it in the oven.

When complete, brush the entire top surface and decorations lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Bake focaccia until top is golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Rotate pan front to back in oven after half the time to assure even baking.

Remove focaccia from oven and transfer to a wire rack or bread board to cool slightly. Serve warm with grated parmesan cheese, if desired.

Comments

0 comments have been posted.

GENERAL GARDENING

An article about gardening.

Keywords:

baking spring produce vegetable garden gardening Sacramento vegetable summer produce summer vegetables produce management farmer's markets

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Food in My Back Yard Series

May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success

April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?

April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

Local News

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Find our spring recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Sites We Like

Garden Checklist for week of May 11

Make the most of the lower temperatures early in the week. We’ll be back in the 80s by Thursday.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch-to-1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

* Remember to weed! Pull those nasties before they set seed.

* Water early in the day and keep seedlings evenly moist.

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Find our winter recipes here!